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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Illithidbix" data-source="post: 7175101" data-attributes="member: 12283">Yep, I'm sure with appropriate DM adjudication and players who buy into it, a game with alignment works just fine, but I've played an game of Scion that was fun with appropriate Storyteller Adjudication (the rulebook was not quite thrown out of the window).Sure but I am also pretty sure that at no point was Arthur asked if he was Lawful Good or Neutral Good.I personally don't equate morality (by whatever standard it uses to define this) being relevant in a game or story to be equivalent to D&D's alignment system.Unfortunately I have read *plenty* of questions that ask how characters should behave pretty solely upon their alignment and also conflicts between DM’s with players whom “they didn’t believe they were playing their alignment right” I've also read plenty of pretty borked rules and definitions regarding alignment that were in core rules, which turns it from something that helpfully. What you say as “absurd strawman” is what the system has been in the core rules.I am admittedly thinking the 2E AD&D DMG here with it’s rules for XP penalties for voluntarily changing alignment “The instant a character voluntarily changes alignment, the experience point cost to gain the next level (or levels in the case of multi-class characters) is doubled.” and where it dubiously advices that Chaotic Neutral characters literally made decisions based upon a roll of a dice and that True Neutral characters would likely switch sides in a conflict to support the new underdogs.Now that is from a book 28 years old and 3 editions back, but it obviously philosophically scarred the poor teenage me who read it at the time.(For sanity’s sake I won’t quote touch anything from the 1E AD&D DMG on Alignment...)3E had a far more sensible definitions of alignment, far clearer that it is a guideline rather than straightjacket, fewer penalties for changing alignment and it’s use from 1E and 2E. However 3E even more so 3.5E had many, many mechanical implications for alignment, esp. in spells and magic items, and even the damage reduction system (in 3.5E).I can understand a “Order’s Hammer” spell causing extra damage to a demon or slaad, but not really to a person who happens to believe in individuality and distrusts governments. Here alignment interpretation could literally be the difference between character death and not from a relatively common spellAnd then the released the Book of Exalted Deeds with such gems as ravages... which are pretty much identical to poisons but only work on evil creatures, and hence are... good...(I am perfectly happy with the idea of the cosmic forces of good using stigmata, bad omens etc to encourage redemption, but I sorta break at the idea of "using poison is evil... except when it only works on evil people") 4E redefined alignments into 5 categories and made most people unaligned, had almost no mechanical implication (damnit Astral Whirlwind!) and made a focus on the tenets of the faith of the gods and (IMO) seemed to suffer nothing from this slaughtering of such sacred cows.And now 5E, defines alignment (back to nine) in deliberately broad strokes and has relatively few mechanical effects for alignment, if somewhat more than 4E and mostly defining mechanical effects of Good and Evil as celestials, fiends and undead. (At my last count in the core rules: 11 spells, 9 monster powers, Bringing Back the Dead, Loyalty rules for NPC Party members,  5 magic items and fairly length bits in sentient magic items and artefacts and of course the planes but it’s intrinsic to their cosmology)But from these comparisons, it seems alignment works the best for most people when it is as light as possible, and I fail to see what benefits it actually brings in being a system that is at all enforced, has mechanical implications, and I think there are better guidelines for players considering their character's behaviour.</blockquote>

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